Why this ‘too big’ Bondi restaurant is slashing seats to survive

Bondi’s 10-year-old China Diner restaurant will serve its last crispy pork bao on Saturday, September 7. But China Diner co-owner Kingsley Smith insists the restaurant’s departure from Hall Street isn’t part of a broader crisis hitting Sydney’s Chinese restaurants.

In August, the president of the Chinese Precinct Chamber of Commerce, Wayne Tseng, told the Herald 49 Chinese food venues in Sydney had either closed or changed operations in the past 18 months.

Sydney has lost Chatswood’s King Dynasty, Chao Kong Chinese Restaurant in Eastwood and Chan’s Canton Village, which opened in 1980 at Casula. China Diner also closed its Double Bay restaurant earlier this year.

But Smith says confidence in Sydney’s ongoing appetite for Chinese food – including last week’s launch of Neil Perry’s Song Bird – remains strong, and he’s set to double-down and reopen at a new undisclosed site in Bondi.

Closer to the beach, Smith says the site he is negotiating on will be 80 seats, rather than the current 200. “That was the problem, the venue was too big [for China Diner] and the rent too high.”

Smith says the plan is to carve China Diner’s Hall Street former home into two tenancies, with a gym at the back and a new food venue at the front.

Restaurateur Ibby Moubadder confirmed he’s taken the front section of the soon-to-be reconfigured site, where he’ll open a branch of his Surry Hills charcoal chicken restaurant, Henrietta, next year. With Belles Hot Chicken next door, it’ll be Bondi’s new poultry precinct.

Moubadder is one of Sydney’s leading restaurateurs, with a stable of eateries stretching from Lilymu at Parramatta to Surry Hills’ Ito restaurant and the two-hat Aalia restaurant in the CBD. With upcoming new food projects in Darlinghurst and the city, Moubadder has also lured Ibrahim Kasif (ex Stanbuli) to his hatted Middle Eastern restaurant, Nour.

Kasif has already given the menu at the Surry Hills restaurant his own imprint. “Even though I have a Turkish inclination with my food, I’m excited by the challenge to align with Nour’s reimagined and reinterpretation of Middle Eastern food.”

The new head chef has already added a kingfish tabouli with sesame leaves and wood-roasted duck with Ottoman quince sauce to Nour’s menu. “I’m always grounded by tradition and history,” Kasif says.